Word: wits
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Hellzapoppin. Least loony is the horse. Trilby, which appears in person. Ezra Stone makes the scientifical cousin almost as objectionable as his family thinks he is. Lou Lubin is hilarious as a tough little race-track tout. At times the play promises to develop a surrealist edge and wit. It never keeps its promise...
...lithe as a whip. It was said that he kept flat-waisted by bowing gracefully. He had plantation manners-the soft-voiced courtesy of his Vicksburg, Miss, breeding. But he was tough, too, in the tradition of Westerners, never more dangerous than at his extreme politest, with a laconic wit that shot from...
...Spence changed with them, but without compromising on fundamentals. He cut his sermons from an hour and a half to 24 minutes. At first he would no more have drunk a highball than try to get a laugh in church. Later he even ordered a set of books called Wit and Humor of America from the Methodist Book Concern, took to reading Mark Twain. It helped...
...Designer Raoul Pène du Bois, who has also clothed a luscious chorus line in just the right places, gives Cole Porter a chance to indulge his talent for Latin-American rhythms (previous examples: Begin the Beguine, I Get A Kick Out of You}. The Porterian lyric wit is displayed in a trio and quintet titled, respectively, God Bless the Women and You Said It. The tune that seems likely to prove most durable is Panama Hattie's response, in rumba rhythm, to temporary disappointment in love: "Make it another oldfashioned, please . . . leave out the cherry, leave...
Dudley Digges gives a superb portrait of a stuffy uncle, and there are effective minor players, especially Bobby Readick as a malevolent small boy who is referred to by Mr. Truex as "Huckleberry Capone." But despite the excellent cast, the playwrights' wit fails to explode, merely intermittently sputters. Even Shakespeare came his croppers; presumably Kaufman & Hart are entitled to theirs...